Paul-Emile Fourny

Paul-Emil Fourny was born in Liege, Belgium, where in 1981 he received the traditionally-awarded First Prize at the Royal Conservatory. Because of his relationship to artistic recitation and lyrical theater, in 1986 he became a member of Gérard Mortier’s group at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. He then continued his career in France, working for Chorégies d’Orange, the Opéra in Avignon, and finally the Opéra in Nice where he became operational director in 1992 then later assistant to the general director, and this year general director. His first work in stage directing for lyrical theater was a share in a staging of Leoš Janáček’s The House of the Dead in collaboration with Wladislav Znorek. In 1997 he directed Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve at the Opéra in Nice, where he also produced Rigoletto, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mireille, and other operas. In 1993 he founded the festival titled Lyrical Evenings in the town of Gigondas, for which he still serves as artistic director. For this festival he has created productions that aroused extraordinary response: Un autre... Don Giovanni in 1998 and Un autre... Carmen in 1999. His active relationship to artistic recitation continues: he served as the reciter in Joseph Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross in 1997, in Arthur Honegger’s King David at the Sacred Music Festival in Nice in 1999, and in the same year in Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at the Acropolis.